Penn State running backs Nicholas Singleton, Kaytron Alen land on Doak Walker award watch list
Numerous Penn State football players have landed on various preseason award watch lists this month. It includes star sophomore running back Nicholas Singleton, who kicked things off by being named to the Maxwell Award watch list. Now, he’s being recognized as a player who could win a different honor at the end of the year. The Doak Walker Award announced more than 30 early candidates on Wednesday. Singleton and classmate Kaytron Allen were two of them.
Penn State last had a player win the Doak Walker, which is given annually to the nation’s best college football running back, in 2002. Larry Johnson became the first and only Nittany Lion to ever claim it then. Singleton or Allen hope to join him as theh continues to prep for the 2023 season.
“They’re the heart and soul of the offense,” Lions offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich recently told BWI. “At the end of the day, you have to stop them. You may be in a really good call, but they’re talented enough to still win. That’s why you make them the heart and soul. They can be in a great call, in a good defense, a loaded front, and you still don’t know. You know?
“You want to lean on that. When in doubt, you’re going to default to the run game, and that’s a good thing to have. That helps the defense out, it helps your special teams out, it helps field position. You want to be in control of every game. You want to have that feeling. Having a dominant run game helps you have that feeling that you’re never really having to play from behind and you’re controlling the game. We want to control the game.”
Season is nearly here for Singleton, Allen, and Penn State
The BigTen Network preseason camp tour stopped at Penn State on Tuesday. It was the first day the Nittany Lions were in pads. Multiple members of the program then spoke with BTN afterward. And then, its crew weighed in with its own final thoughts from State College.
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“This team is locked and loaded,” BTN analyst Howard Griffith said. “We’ve we have not seen them at this level yet. And they have every opportunity to achieve their goals after what we just saw today.
“Now we haven’t seen the other [practices]. But I’m confident in what I just saw today that this is a not a good team, but a really good team.”
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